Wisdom is with the aged and understanding in length of days.
Job 12:12 (ESV)
Have you noticed there is an upside to aging? I would say things started coming together for me in my 50’s. My life experience up to that point set me up to do productive work—and I have been on a roll ever since! My secret to success has been integration in aging which has allowed me to continue to build an ever growing and ever deepening storehouse of wisdom.
I hope this is good news for those of you feeling your age. I am suggesting that the most productive years of our lives are the decades of our 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and even well into our 80’s if we are feeling good. If you find yourself in these age ranges today—be encouraged and validated! You are needed!
In the passage above Job says wisdom is not so much about how to live right, but the knowledge of how to act so as to be successful or to effectively accomplish a task. Aging definitely allows us to accumulate an immense amount of life experience, knowledge and understanding along with valuable insights and thoughtful discretion. When we integrate it all and condense it down to what is communicable we have so much more to offer those following along behind us.
Recent studies indicate that aging increases integration across a wide range of perceptual domains and behaviors. Researchers learned something interesting when they scanned the brains of participants—young adults (ages 19-31) and older adults (ages 61-80)—as they viewed a series of photographs with positive and negative themes, such as a victorious skier or a wounded soldier. The older adults showed strong connections between the brain regions that process emotions and those known to be important to the successful formation of memories, particularly when processing positive information. These same strong connections weren’t found in the younger participants.
Integration in aging is the amalgamation of life experiences for the purpose of gaining greater wisdom. Consider this! Integration becomes extremely helpful when applying this kind of wisdom to better choices which most certainly would include “I’m not going to do that again!”